Ecommerce and online stores

“I have been very impressed with the support from Canadian publishers over this period. Monthly catalogues have helped with ordering — but I don't want to give up in person meetings!”

Ecommerce and online stores

As we mentioned above, most respondents used Bookmanager as their ecommerce platform (69%). Less popular platforms used to run ecommerce/online stores were Shopify (9%) and Woocommerce (4%).

According to What’s in Store: The State of Independent Bookselling in Canada, in 2018 about 6 in 10 booksellers shared their in-store product inventory online (57%) and half of booksellers reported that they derived some revenue from online/digital purchases (49%).

In 2020, 96% of respondents were running an ecommerce or online store and 74% had been around since before 2020:

● 24% for 11 or more years ● 20% for 2-4 years ● 19% for 8-10 years ● 11% for 5-7 years

For the 22% of bookstores that started their online store during the pandemic, common barriers to ecommerce entry were the cost and time involved, from set up to maintenance, and the lack of technical knowledge.

For a few booksellers, COVID-19 just sped up their timeline as they already were planning on setting up an online store. Many booksellers added that setting up online selling was a change they made to survive COVID-19 that they will continue to leverage. There were also comments that booksellers’ website, web orders, and online presence were working well.